Having enjoyed reading your
biographical, They
can't take that away from me...
I would love to post your article (for
my) course for seniors entitled Autobiography and Journaling ... and
let them read your article as a good example of what I call the
reader's writer, clearly expressed and easy to read. (Howell)

The French language has always
appealed to me ... so I enjoyed Lavinia's experiences
en France! (Di
Sullivan, Perth, Australia)

I am an American and an expat here
since 1990. I have been a subscriber to Writing Tip for a few years
now and look forward to the
Friday editions.
I archive by creating topics of the tips relevant to me and often
refer. (Mary, Lagos, Nigeria)

WRITERS!

Write Your Own
Best Seller!

This year, don't
just read a best-seller ...
Write your own using the software program that works in the
same way J K Rowling writes her Harry Potter novels!

Great newsletter - originally found
this site after searching for clarification on a
contentious point
amongst work colleagues. Just had to look at old issues and now look
forward to Fridays (Juliet Wallace, Manchester, ENGLAND)

The
Write Way

8 August 2008

An Accident Waiting to Happen
...

Greetings,

We were shopping at one of those ubiquitous
shopping malls last week and decided that it was time for our coffee fix, so
while the Love of My Life went to stand in the queue for coffee, I set off in
search of somewhere to sit.

As we all know, when looking for Somewhere to
Sit, it can't be just anywhere, but has to be somewhere out of the way of
passing prams and strollers driven by frantic women with two or three demanding
toddlers in tow. It also has to be away from the rubbish bins, where harried
workers, heavily engrossed in conversation, absent-mindedly toss their rubbish
in the general direction of the bin and quite frequently miss.

Neither can it be on one of those large, communal
tables where you can get wedged between people who quite obviously spend way too
much time frequenting fast-food outlets.

No, it has to be just the right spot so you can
enjoy your break in relative comfort and seclusion. And thus it was that when my
husband finally tracked me down, I was tucked into a corner table, surrounded by
the indestructible potted palms that abound in such areas and able to survey the
passing throngs without worrying either of us were going to be wearing their
burgers, kebabs or all-you-can-fit-on-a-plate Chinese takeaway.

I don't know about you, but I love
people-watching, and I'm in my element in such situations where I can observe
without being too blatant about it.

My attention fixed on one of the aforementioned
harassed mums who'd settled herself (if you can ever apply that term to a woman
with three children under the age of five) a couple of tables away from us at
one of those set-ups that had a fixed table with a bench seat along one side and
two chairs on the opposite side. She'd chosen this so she could position her
double stroller on the other end of the table. (What a nightmare those things
must be to manouevre through crowded shopping centres!)

Of course, all three ankle-biters demanded to be
let out and to sit on the chairs (not the bench), so there she was, sitting
alone on the bench and struggling to keep the excitement under some semblance of
control as the three fought over the two chairs, reached across the table,
spread out their plastic drinking cups, brochures they'd collected from
somewhere along their travels and assorted stuffed toys, raggy old blankets and
items of discarded clothing.

By the time her husband returned with a tray
laden with chips, baby-burgers and fizzy drinks for the kids and big burgers and
hot coffees for the grown-ups, there wasn't much flat space left, so he balanced
the tray on one corner as I muttered a warning under my breath.

It must be something that happens when you give
birth, so this is definitely a mother-thing, but I swear every woman in the
immediate vicinity (apart, that is, from his harried spouse who was reaching
under the table to retrieve some valued toy) was instantly alert as he started
to unload his tray and distribute the food to his starving family. First the
chips, which, positioned as they were on the side of the tray closest to the
edge and being feather-light in weight, had little impact on our story.

Then he removed one fizzy drink, but this time it
was from the edge that was in contact with the table. The mothers in the room
drew in a quick breath, then sighed as he handed the drink uneventfully to his
oldest child. This led the two younger ones to demand their drinks immediately.

To do this he had to remove the hand that was
supporting the tray, and when he reached for both drinks simultaneously, a
collective gasp went up from the watching mothers, and we stared in horrified
fascination as the tray simply upended and vanished onto the floor, but not
before it had spilt the contents of the coffee over all the remaining food, the
table and its assorted contents (although fortunately not over the children).

As I said, it must be a mother-thing, this
ability to see accidents waiting to happen wherever you look. Whenever we stayed
in hotels or motels when our kids were with us, I would always draw my family's
attention to the location of the fire stairs; if we went bush-walking along
mountain tracks, I'd point out rusting supports on lookout fences, rotten
timbers on bridges across raging torrents and the like ...

In other words, I was always aware of all the
what-ifs, and as a consequence (I like to think there's a direct correlation)
none of us suffered any horrific injuries along the way.

With both our offspring now adults, I comfort
myself with the thought that if I can't be watching over them all the time, at
least I've passed along some of my awareness to them. So when I overheard our
daughter relate the story of how she always asks for a seat at the back of the
plane because "my mum said that very few planes reverse into
mountains," I knew my work here was done.

All this talk of accidents waiting to happen
makes me ponder how often things end in tears, witness our little family and the
unfortunate end to their lunch. And this made me wonder about ... crocodile
tears. (C'mon now, be kind, some weeks are harder than others to work in a
writing tip!)

We all know what crocodile tears are ... those
big drops that slide winsomely down the cheek of your precious child who's not
getting his/her own way, but why crocodiles? Surely big, cuddly panda bear tears
or ever-so cute tiger cub tears would be more appropriate. But cold-blooded,
prehistoric crocodiles?

Well, it seems that the ancient Egyptians (who
knew a thing about crocs, having to live cheek-by-jowl with them along the Nile)
noticed that after crocodiles had devoured a meal, especially if it was a very
large meal, they'd appear to cry. The Egyptians, being a sentimental lot,
assumed the crocodiles were sorry for what they had just done and were shedding
tears.

We now know that far from crying, this is part of
the normal process of eating, and after a meal, the crocodile sheds excess salt
from its system by means of glands located beneath each eye.

We use the term "crocodile tears" to
refer to those false tears people shed (literally or metaphorically) over
something they don't really care about.

This week's Little Something Extra has
some inspiration for those of you who feel your Muse nudging you to write about
an accident waiting to happen ...

And this story is about an old chap who probably
never had to shed crocodile tears ...

An elderly man had owned a large
farm for several years. He had a pond in the back, fixed up nicely with picnic
tables and some apple and peach trees. The pond was properly shaped and fixed up
for swimming when it was built. One evening the old farmer decided to go down to
the pond to look it over, as he hadn’t been there for a while. Since he was
going that way, he grabbed a five-gallon bucket to bring back some fruit.

As he neared the pond, he heard
voices shouting and laughing with glee, and when he got closer, he saw it was a
bunch of young women skinny-dipping in his pond. He made the women aware of his
presence, and they all went to the deep end.

One of the women shouted to him,
“We’re not coming out until you leave!”

The old man frowned, “I didn’t
come down here to watch you ladies swim naked or make you get out of the pond
with no clothes on.” Holding the bucket up he said, “I’m just here to feed
the crocodile.”

This week's quiz:

All
these words are derived from Latin – match the word with its meaning:

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Did you hear about the bee that took over the
other's shift to give him a break? He was a spelling bee.

And speaking, as we were, about things that end
in tears, here's a situation that may be familiar to some ...

A man is a person who, if a woman
says, "Never mind, I'll do it myself," lets her.

A woman is a person who, if she
says to a man, "Never mind, I'll do it myself," and he lets her, gets
mad.

A man is a person who, if a woman
says to him, "Never mind, I'll do it myself," and he lets her and she
gets mad, says, "Now what are you mad about?"

A woman is a person who, if she
says to a man, "Never mind, I'll do it myself," and he lets her and
she gets mad, and he says, "Now what are mad about?" says, "If
you don't know I'm not going to tell you!"

3. undesirable occurrence in which the line
breaks in digitally typeset copy change due to alterations in the layout -
REFLOW

4. type of printing that uses rubber printing
plates- FLEXOGRAPHY

5. process of converting mathematical and digital
information into a series of dots using an imagesetter for the purpose of
producing film negatives or positives - RASTERIZATION

6. money paid to an author, usually at the time a
contract is signed, that is a portion of expected royalties that will be paid to
the author once the book is published - ADVANCE (Sometimes known as "music
to my ears.")

7. thick cotton fabric used on the dampening
rollers of a printing press - MOLLETON

8. short phrase or word that identifies an
article as it goes through the production process; usually placed at the top
corner of submitted copy - SLUG (And no, this isn't the editor who rejected your
query either.)

9. extra white space at the top of a chapter
opener - SINKAGE

10. part of a book's back matter that includes
lists of resources, tables or other reference material - APPENDIX (Not to be
confused with that dangly bit responsible for processing cellulose.)

And a corny crocodile story ...

A man walks into a bar carrying a
crocodile and a chicken. He sets them down on the stool next to him and says to
the (uncertain-looking) bartender, "I'll have a Scotch and
Soda."

Then the crocodile says,
"And I'll have a Whiskey Sour."

The (dumbfounded) bartender
gasps, "That's incredible; I've never seen a crocodile that could
talk!"

And the man says "He can't;
the chicken is a ventriloquist."

A Little
Something Extra

If you're searching for fodder for
accident stories, you can't go past the Darwin Awards ... here's a short sample:

(8 March 2008, Czech Republic) Steel
is valuable, especially the high grade alloy used in steel cable. Scrap metal
dealers do not ask questions. They pay in cash. And a good supply of cables can
be found in elevator shafts.

This particular goldmine was a
towering shaft inside an empty grainery near Zatec, 40 miles northwest of
Prague. The cable was tightly fastened, and the far end of it disappeared into
the shadowy distance above.

After substantial wear and tear
on a hacksaw, our man finally cut through the strong steel cable. At that
instant, the counterbalance, no longer held in check, started to move silently
downwards, accelerating until it reached the bottom of the shaft.

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